Nanosystems ERC for Nanomanufacturing Systems for Mobile Computing and Mobile Energy Technologies
Create high throughput, reliable and versatile nanomanufacturing systems and associated processes through transformative research, education of leaders and global and industrial engagement that will revolutionize future generations of mobile computing and energy devices.
NASCENT Transformational Technologies Will Shape the Future of Mobile Computing and Mobile Energy Devices
Develop technologies, processes, and tools to create mobile devices with different form factors and novel nanomaterials with the goal of increasing battery life and storage capacity while keeping costs low.
The Center will crystallize and articulate practical requirements of future generation mobile computing and energy devices. We will create a NASCENT Center Technology Roadmap (NCTR) that will document the successful metrics for the enabling manufacturing systems and the prototypical mobile computing devices.
The Center will foster a culture of innovation to deliver valuable intellectual property for industrial partners, to commercially deploy Center technologies among the Center members, and through the creation of start-up companies.
The Center will develop a cadre of highly skilled future innovators and leaders that will include strong representation from underrepresented communities.
RESEARCH THRUSTS
Thrust 1: Process Technologies —Top-down fabrication of nano-scale structures with exquisite control of feature size and shape. Processable materials for devices and machines, including directed self-assembly of block co-polymers and nanoparticles.
Thrust 2: Metrology & Yield Enhancement—Sub-wavelength optical nanometrology for real-time nanomanufacturing feedback and fault diagnostics, validated uncertainty quantification (UQ) models for scale-up and process control.
TEST BEDS
Roll-to-Roll Nanofabrication Test Bed—2D and 3D nanosculpting on R2R flexible substrates, high-speed solvent-less R2R graphene transfer, R2R thin film coatings with nano-scale thicknesses, R2R printable nanomaterials, and in-line nanometrology.
Flex Crystalline Nanofabrication Test Bed—Flexible crystalline substrates exfoliated from bulk wafers, wafer-scale 2D and 3D nanosculpting with unprecedented control in size and shape of patterns, and in-line nanometrology.
REPRESENTATIVE APPLICATIONS
Flex Crystalline Nanofabrication Test Bed
Novel high-density STT-RAM with potential for >5x storage capacity as compared to ITRS 2022
Flex Si Supercapacitors
Flex Si PV
Roll-to-Roll Nanofabrication Test Bed
Flex THz Transceiver
Photonics for Flex Displays
Bio-Nanocarrier for Drug Delivery
The headquarters for the NASCENT Center is located within the Microelectronics Research Building (MER Building 160) on the J.J. Pickle Research Campus of UT-Austin. The headquarters consists of office and meeting room space for the Center leadership, students and faculty at UT-Austin. It also includes 5000 sq. ft. of class 1000 clean room space for manufacturing tools and research enabling test-beds. In addition, the Center is collocated with existing equipment and facilities in the Microelectronics Research Center that include the NSF funded National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) facilities of the Texas Nanofabrication Facility (TNF) that is a state-of-the-art, shared-equipment, open-use resource. The laboratory serves academic, industrial, and governmental researchers across the country and around the globe. The NASCENT partner universities—University of New Mexico and University of California at Berkeley—use NASCENT funding to develop new capabilities in high-speed metrology and roll-to-roll nanofabrication respectively. These new capabilities will complement the existing nanofabrication capabilities at these universities.
The University of Texas at Austin
University of New Mexico
University of California at Berkeley
University of Houston
Notice: Please contact international@erc-assoc.org if you represent this Research Institution and have identified any required additions or modifications to the above information.